


Baby, Let's Make History

by RabbitRunnah



Series: Baby, Let's Make History [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Meeting, Alternate Universe, History Teacher Jack Zimmermann, M/M, Older Zimbits, Professional Baker Eric Bittle, Single Dad Eric Bittle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RabbitRunnah/pseuds/RabbitRunnah
Summary: Jack Zimmermann has 99 problems, and all of them are named Amelia Bittle.Amelia Bittle, who sits in the back of his class and whispers with her classmates after he’s instructed them to compare and contrast the political systems of ancient Greece and India.Amelia Bittle, who ate Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in class after lunch last week and left a cloud of red dust on her desk.Amelia Bittle who, after Jack gave her detention yesterday for eating in class, used said detention to write a rap about him, then performed it while he was setting up a video for the class to watch.(Amelia Bittle, whose very attractive and mortified-looking father is sitting across from him bearing apologies and ... a pie?)





	Baby, Let's Make History

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the au I was working on. This isn't even the single dads au I was working on. This was an idea that started out as a couple of lines and turned into an entire fic. My thanks to everyone who read an earlier draft and offered suggestions. Any mistakes are my own.

Jack Zimmermann has 99 problems, and all of them are named Amelia Bittle.

Amelia Bittle, who sits in the back of his class and whispers with her classmates after he’s instructed them to compare and contrast the political systems of ancient Greece and India.

Amelia Bittle, who ate Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in class after lunch last week and left a cloud of red dust on her desk.

Amelia Bittle who, after Jack gave her detention yesterday for eating in class, used said detention to write a rap about him, then performed it while he was setting up a video for the class to watch.

(Amelia Bittle, whose very attractive and mortified-looking father is sitting across from him bearing apologies and ... a pie?)

“Thank you for meeting me today, Mr. Bittle,” Jack begins when the alarm on his watch indicates it’s three o’clock. “Are we waiting on anybody else, or should we begin?”

A cloud momentarily passes over Mr. Bittle’s face before it’s replaced with his more pleasant — if not slightly irritated — expression. “It will just be me today.”

“Then I’d like to get started. As you know, I asked you here today to discuss Amelia’s attitude in my class. Middle school is a tough transition for a lot of kids so I usually let them have a little more leeway than I should for the first month or so. Most kids figure it out and are able to keep up with everything after a short period of adjustment. Amelia —”

“Hasn’t changed her attitude,” Mr. Bittle interrupts.

“She’s gotten worse,” Jack agrees. “She hasn’t turned in a complete assignment since the first week of school. She does well on her tests, but her homework isn’t up to grade level standards. When she bothers to do it, that is. There’s also this.” Jack slides his phone across the table to Bittle and presses the play button on a YouTube video one of his other students uploaded.

“She’s very good,” Bittle notes as he watches his daughter’s antics. He eyes widen in horror at the part where she climbs on top of her desk and begins dancing.

“She is,” Jack admits. “She actually managed to weave a fairly sophisticated understanding of the ancient Greeks’ contributions to modern life into a diatribe on my fashion choices. Unfortunately, this is sixth grade history, not Introduction to Rap.”

“Ain’t that a shame,” Bittle says, and for a second Jack wonders if he’s one of those parents who believes self-directed learning based on his child’s passion is more important than standards and structure.

Jack likes to think of himself as a “fun” teacher. He’s got a long table and a couch set up in the back of the room so his students can work on group projects in a comfortable environment. He spends the first ten minutes of every class discussing current events, and allows the kids to share videos and articles they think are important. This is his ancient civilizations class, so he gives them their year-end final a week early so they can spend the last week of school researching and playing the sports and games enjoyed by the people of the eras they've studied.

The point is, Jack is not averse to _fun_. It’s just that Amelia Bittle’s idea of fun is not at all the same as Jack’s, particularly when it’s at Jack’s expense.

“Mr. Bittle, I’d like you to talk to your daughter about how she should be conducting herself now that she’s in middle school. She’s a very capable student. We offer a mid-morning break and a lunch period, as well as passing time in between classes, for socialization. And I’m not sure what electives she’s taking, but we have a variety of drama and music electives if she’d like to explore her creative side. However, when she’s in my class, she needs to show respect for me and her fellow students, not to mention the curriculum.”

“Of course! I understand. I’ll be talking to her as soon as we get home.”

“You may also want to talk to her about the language she uses in these creative pursuits of hers. It’s not really appropriate for a 12-year-old student to rap about my —” Jack can feel his cheeks go warm — “er, _assets_.”

Mr. Bittle flushes too, and buries his face in his hands. Jack can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying. He thinks he hears a muffled “Good lord.” When he looks up at Jack again his face is still red. “Mr. Zimmermann, please accept my apology. It _has_ been a rough transition for her, but that’s no excuse for this behavior.” He smiles and pushes the pie across the table. “Please, take this. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to talk to me about everything. It won’t happen again.” 

“I hope it won’t,” Jack says. “Er, thanks for the pie.”

“There’s a card on top of the pie with instructions for reheating,” Bittle says as he all but runs out the door. 

 _Well, that was awkward,_ Jack thinks as the door closes _._

 

 

It happens again.

Despite her father’s assurance, and Amelia’s repeated apologies every time Jack has to talk to her about staying on task in his class, she earns three more detentions in a three week span. (“It was an accident!” she said when she threw a pen that hit another student in the back of the head. She wasn’t as apologetic the times he caught her eating Sour Patch Kids and playing with Snapchat filters.) Jack sends a brief text to her father to inform him of the third detention. 

 _Good lord. I’ll talk to her tonight_ , is the reply he receives. The next day, Amelia meets Jack at his desk after class. “My dad is making me apologize for my behavior and I have to give you this or whatever,” she says, dropping a white paper bag on his desk. 

Jack looks up from the colored maps of ancient Mesopotamia he’s grading. “Thank you. I accept your apology. What I’d like even more than an apology, though, is a real change in your behavior.”

Amelia frowns a little, and gives Jack a short little nod. “I’ll try,” she says, and it sounds sincere. “Anyway, that’s a pear tart in there.”

“That sounds good,” Jack says. “Did you make it?”

She smiles, almost shyly. “My dad had some leftover stuff after work last night. I made a few tarts after I finished my homework.”

“I look forward to trying it.” 

“If you don’t like it, my dad made it.” 

Jack laughs, and hopes this finally marks a turning point.

 

 

Outside of class, Jack notices Amelia Bittle is popular and well-liked by everyone. She’s one of only a handful of sixth graders to earn a role in the school play, and is immediately accepted into the artsy theater crowd. When he passes her on campus during the lunch period, she’s always holding court in the middle of a large group of students that includes both boys and girls as well as seventh and eighth graders. She’s friendly with the janitor, her art teacher, and the school librarian, who are frequent recipients of her tarts — presumably because she likes them and not because she owes them apologies. Whenever she catches Jack’s eye outside of class she waves and says hello, like she isn’t the cause of most of the stress in his life.

When Amelia’s father gives him the same smile at a conference Jack calls at the end of the first quarter, he completely forgets that his daughter is the cause of most of the stress in his life.

A week before first quarter grades were due, Jack had given his students a bit of a reprieve and told them he would accept any late work for full credit up until the day before grades were due. This meant a huge headache for Jack, who stayed up late all week reading assignments and entering all of the missing grades. He didn’t mind, though. After his professional hockey career ended, he could have retired and lived a comfortable life, but he couldn’t imagine not having a job to go to every day, a purpose. He’d occupied his time first with coaching a local youth hockey team, then with college, pursuing a history degree. Somehow, the two had become entwined and he’d realized teaching was something he could see himself doing, happily, as a second career. He’d known when he decided on this course that the job would mean weeks like this. But it’s worth it to do something he genuinely enjoys. 

What he had not enjoyed, at 1 a.m. on Thursday night (Friday morning?), was making it to the bottom of his stack of late assignments only to realize not a single paper belonged to Amelia Bittle, who had turned in only three complete assignments all quarter.

Now Eric Bittle — his name is Eric, Jack has learned — is here in his classroom with that smile and another apology pie. Jack stands when he enters and accepts his handshake.

“I’m sorry we keep meeting like this,” Eric says with what sounds to Jack like forced lightness.

Jack takes the pie and places it on his desk, then motions for Eric to sit in the chair across from him. 

“Mr. Bittle,” he begins, “I’m sure you’re aware the first quarter ended on Friday. You should receive Amelia’s report card in the mail by the end of the week, and you can always keep up with her grades via the school’s app. Are you aware of the app?”

Eric nods, a little curtly. “I’m aware. I’ve been talking to Amelia about her grades for weeks, and she said she was taking care of things. She told me she was doing the missing assignments, and then when I confronted her about not turning _those_ in she told me she’d lost the original papers and was too embarrassed to ask you for more.”

“She knows she could have asked for additional copies,” Jack says. “There were several students who needed the assignments. It’s too late to do anything about that now. I’m more concerned that if this pattern continues, Mr. Bittle, Amelia won’t pass sixth grade. As it stands, she’s in danger of being asked to leave the school play. I’ve been talking to some of Amelia’s other teachers, and I’ve taken a look at her grades from her previous school. She seems to have a problem with my class, in particular, but her grades are down across the board. As I said the first time we met, it’s not unusual for students to have a difficult time during the transition from primary to middle school, but I noticed you actually relocated here from Chicago. Do you think it’s just the transition to a middle school schedule with multiple teachers and more homework, or is there something else going on that might be affecting her attitude?”

Eric sighs. “I know it’s been rough on her. I’m not making excuses, Mr. Zimmermann. I just want to be honest with you. This past year has been difficult. My former partner — Amelia’s other father — and I split up three years ago. The less said about that, the better. He hasn’t been very involved in her life, and that’s been hard on her, but there’s no reason to bring him into this right now. I have full, permanent custody of Amelia. We moved here at the beginning of the summer to be closer to some friends, because raising a kid on my own away from a support network turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

Jack thinks he detects a hint of a Southern accent in Eric’s voice, and guesses any family he has wasn’t in Chicago.

“She’s upset about having to leave her team and not moving on to middle school with her friends,” Eric continues. “I told her that we’ll get her signed up for a new hockey team just as soon as the clubs have tryouts. And we’re in therapy, too. It’s just —” Eric waves a hand in front of him to indicate the magnitude of his stress — “a lot. I work full-time, sometimes more than that because I’m self-employed, and I admit I don’t always have a chance to check her homework. I get home, sometimes we go to therapy and then I make dinner for us, and after that I just want to mentally check out, you know? She’s always been a straight-A student, and I just assumed she was getting it done. That part is on me.” 

He really does look upset, not at all like some of the other parents Jack has dealt with. The ones who insist that if their child is failing Jack’s class, it must be because of Jack.

“Mr. Bittle, it’s not your fault,” Jack says reassuringly. “Amelia is twelve; that’s old enough to take some responsibility for her work and her attitude. It sounds like you’re doing everything you can to get her the help she needs dealing with all of the changes in her life.”

Eric closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before opening them again. “I know. I know it’s not my fault. That’s one of the stories I tell myself that I’m working to unlearn in therapy and — oh gosh, I don’t mean to unload all of this on you. You’ve been more than kind.”

This isn’t the first time a frustrated parent has given Jack a sad sob story, but it’s one of the few he’s believed. For all of his daughter’s faults, Eric Bittle seems like a responsible, hands-on father who just happens to be a little overwhelmed right now. “Mr. Bittle, Amelia isn’t a bad kid. And you aren’t a bad dad. She’s just a kid who happens to be going through a rough time right now.”

Eric nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what my mama and my friends keep telling me. It’s just … They say this age is hard, but you don’t really _get it_ until you’re in the thick of it.”

“I think,” Jack adds, carefully, “that given the situation, I can be a little flexible these next few weeks. If you’ll agree to check Amelia’s homework nightly, I’ll personally make sure she has the assignments every night. She can even turn them in directly to me when she gets to class instead of waiting for me to collect them.”

Eric nods. “That sounds fair. I can do that.”

“I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Bittle. I always find that these things are much easier to deal with when I’m on the same page as my students’ parents.”

“I appreciate your kindness, “ Eric replies. “You’re going above and beyond what I’d expect, given you have so many students to look out for. I won’t take any more of your time today. Feel free to text me if you have additional problems.”

“I’ll do that,” Jack assures him. His eyes fall on the pie on his desk. “Oh, and thanks for the pie. The last one was really good. Do you … Amelia gave me a pear tart a few weeks ago, and said she made it with your leftovers from work. Are you a chef?”

Eric’s whole face lights up when he smiles. “Baker. I bought a little place in our neighborhood that was for sale. That’s actually what got us here; my friend Larissa found out the previous owner was looking for a buyer so she called me up and told me it was my chance to finally get out of Chicago and open my own place.” He shrugs. “And now we’re here, and my daughter is making your life hell, apparently. My mama always said an apology pie can go a long way toward making things right, and I know that’s not always true, but I _am_ a good Southern boy and old habits die hard. This one’s berry. Let me know if you like it as much as the apple.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“And if you’re ever in the neighborhood, stop in Bitty’s Bites and Brews for a cup of coffee on me. It’s the least I can do.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, thoughtful, as he shakes Eric’s hand. “I’d like that.”

 

 

Jack has to give Eric and Amelia Bittle credit, it’s been a month and she’s turned in every assignment, even if some of them demonstrate the bare minimum of effort on her part. Her behavior in class, however, has somehow gotten _worse_.

At their last meeting — which this time included Amelia and the vice principal — Eric had brought a chocolate cream pie with an Oreo cookie crust, and Amelia had promised that in the future, she’ll read quietly or do homework when she finishes her in-class work rather than distract her fellow students.

Amelia was able to keep her promise for approximately three days.

Today, the kids are supposed to be working in groups to create a poster, and _most_ groups are working quietly and cooperatively. The muffled giggles coming from Amelia Bittle’s group in the corner of the room, however, suggest they might _not_ be comparing and contrasting the the major elements of ancient Greek religious thought with Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

“What’s going on?” he asks when he approaches the group. No surprise who the ringleader is. He catches the small blonde girl at the center of everything frantically trying to shove her phone into the front pocket of her hoodie.

“Nothing!” The four other students in the group look a little guilty, but Amelia just stares at Jack defiantly. She has her father’s brown eyes, he notes. 

“May I see that?” Jack asks.

“See what?” Amelia feigns ignorance.

“The phone. You know phones need to be kept in your backpacks when you’re in my classroom, unless I’ve given permission to use them for an assignment. I’d like you to show me what you were looking at.”

“Just show him,” a boy, Juan, says in exasperation.

Reluctantly, Amelia takes out her phone and opens it to the website they were looking at. It’s not as bad as it could be, Jack notes. He doesn’t want to think about the call he’d have to make to Amelia’s father if she’d been looking at something inappropriate. It’s not exactly good, either. It’s an old ESPN article about Jack and the career-ending injury that took him out of the NHL ten years ago, along with a video featuring his career highlights.

It’s actually kind of flattering. But this is definitely not the time or place.

“How did you find this?” Jack asks. His former career is an open secret at school, but it’s not something he often talks about.

Amelia levels him with a look of pure disdain. “ _Google_?”

Jack lets the attitude go because he’s not going to argue with a 12-year-old. “This isn’t an appropriate use of your time. Since this is the second time I’ve caught you using it in class, I’m going to have to take your phone and give you lunch detention and a zero for today.”

“I need my phone!” Amelia yelps.

“I’ll call your father and he can pick it up if he decides you should have it. Honestly, if you were my daughter, I’d have to think long and hard about whether you’re responsible enough to have this type of technology.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not my father,” Amelia sneers. But she hands over the phone. Jack sighs, knowing the phone call he’s about to make is probably going to ruin Eric Bittle’s day.

 

 

Today’s pie looks a little sad, lopsided and slightly burnt around the edges, and Jack wonders if it’s meant to be some sort of metaphor. Most of the time Eric shows up to these meetings looking upbeat and ready to work with Jack (and now, the school’s administration) to help Amelia succeed, but today Jack can tell it’s wearing on him. There’s a streak of something white in his hair and another on the front of his shirt; he must have dropped everything at work to come to the school as soon as he got Jack’s call.

“Mr. Bittle, your daughter has to stop this. If she fails my class, she’s going to have to go to summer school to make up the credits. Also, every time I have to call you in to discuss her behavior, you bring me a pie. I've gained five pounds this year, and I’m pretty sure I can trace it back to stress eating your pies.”

“Oh dear,” Eric laughs. “I _am_ sorry about that. I can knock it off with the pie.”

“I actually like the pie,” Jack admits. “I would just like it better if you were giving it to me under different circumstances. Speaking of today’s circumstances, I expect Amelia will have a lot of unflattering things to say about me tonight.” He hands the phone over. “I don’t think she was expecting me to take it away.”

“You did the right thing,” Eric reassures him, slipping the phone into his pocket. “The phone is one of my bargaining chips. She knows she has to behave appropriately in order to use it. I thought it was safe to give it back since she’s been able to maintain a B-average in her classes. I guess I’ll have to reconsider.”

“It’s not just Amelia,” Jack says in an attempt to make him feel a little better. “A lot of my students have trouble keeping their phones put away during class.”

“I imagine it’s just one more thing you have to worry about that our teachers never had to deal with, right? It definitely isn’t something our parents had to deal with when we were kids.”

“About that,” Jack says. “I may have overstepped some boundaries when I took it from her. I told her that if she were my child, I wouldn’t consider her responsible enough to have a phone. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to impose my personal beliefs on something that’s between you and your child.”

“Clearly, she's not responsible enough to have a phone," Eric agrees. “I didn’t want to get it, but I have the early shift at the bakery a few mornings a week and sometimes I don’t get home until after she does, so it’s just easier for both of us if she has a phone. I think it’s time for me to take it away for a week so she can really think about whether she wants to have it. Thanks again, Mr. Zimmermann. I hope you have a nice evening.” Eric is on his way out the door when Jack remembers something that's been rattling around in the back of his mind for weeks, perhaps triggered by the site Amelia was looking at earlier today.

“Mr. Bittle — Eric.” He stops in the doorway and turns back toward him. “In one of our earlier meetings, you mentioned Amelia having to leave her hockey team back in Chicago. I don’t know why I didn’t put this together before. Does she play?”

Eric laughs. “ _Does she play_. Mr. Zimmermann, my daughter may be small, but she’s a mighty fine forward. Fast. We’ve just been having some trouble getting her on a team here. She’s on a wait list right now.”

Jack nods, and is a little surprised at what he says next, given the less-than-stellar teacher-student relationship he has with Amelia. “Amelia will need to keep a minimum GPA in order to play, and she can’t be failing any classes — including mine — but I do coach the co-ed hockey team here at school. It’s a winter sport; practices begin after the holidays. Our season is very short. We play a few other schools in the area and there’s a regional tournament at the end of the season. It’s no-cut, and probably not as competitive as what she’s used to if she was playing for a club, but if she can keep her grades up and stay out of trouble — and _listen to me_ , since I’ll be her coach — we’d love to have her.”

At this offer, Eric looks more _hopeful_ than Jack has seen him in a long time. “I’ll talk to her about it. I know she’s been loving being in the play, but that all ends in a few weeks and it’s better for both of us when she’s involved in an activity. She’s been missing the ice something fierce.”

“I remember what it was like,” Jack explains. “To be off the ice for a while. Different circumstances, but …” he shrugs. “She’s welcome to come out. It’s a lot of fun.”

“Thank you, Mr. Zimmermann. I can’t promise anything, but I think getting her back on the ice will be good for all of us.”

“Jack.”

Eric raises an eyebrow.

“You can call me Jack.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Eric says, and the smile he gives him once again makes Jack forget all about his earlier frustration.

 

 

Slowly — baby step-slowly — things get better.

The promise of hockey seems to motivate Amelia, and Jack notices an improvement in the quality of her work even before the season begins. She’s even able to  — mostly — keep her thoughts and opinions to herself during class.

She also turns out to be an amazing hockey player. Eric’s right; she’s small but she’s quick on her feet, and can out-skate boys twice her size. Amelia manages to get some of the theater kids to come out and play, and what they lack in skill they make up for with sheer enthusiasm. Eric, who finally reveals to Jack that he played on an NCAA team in college, comes out to assist Jack on Monday afternoons when the bakery is closed. When Jack and Eric demonstrate, at the first practice, how to take a check, it becomes a _thing_ and the kids request it every week. The team wins about half its games and gets eliminated in the second round of the season-ending tournament. Amelia is voted team MVP. After the season ends, Jack is able to pull some strings with people he knows to get her a mid-season tryout with a club hockey team. Since Eric works weekends, Jack offers to drive her to the Saturday morning practices. She starts to call him “Jack,” and he only has to remind her a few times that when they’re in class, it’s “Mr. Zimmermann.”

Jack starts going to Eric’s bakery to grade papers on Sunday afternoons. Eric’s usually working behind the counter, and Amelia is often at a corner table doing homework of her own. Sometimes Jack helps her edit an English essay or double checks her math. On those days, Eric always gives him a slice of pie and cup of coffee on the house. Sometimes he joins Jack on his break or when things are slow, and they slowly get to know each other beyond the conversations they’ve had about Amelia. On _very_ slow afternoons, he allows Jack and Amelia to join him in the kitchen, where the Bittles teach Jack to make pear tarts and — eventually — apple pie. In the spring, Jack teaches Eric and Amelia to make his favorite Passover desserts.

If Jack sticks around long enough to help Eric close up on Sunday afternoons (and lately, he _always_ sticks around long enough to help Eric close up on Sunday afternoons), the three of them go to out to dinner, a strange little almost-family unit. They take turns choosing, and it becomes a sort of game to see how many restaurants in Providence they can try before they have to repeat a choice. Amelia ranks them on a list she keeps in her phone: Best Burger, Best Pho, Best Burrito, Best Trendy Weird Food With Kale. Sunday becomes Jack’s favorite day of the week. He accepts that the five (okay, by now it’s actually ten) extra pounds he’s acquired since meeting the Bittles are going to be a part of him for as long as they’re a part of his life, and he doesn’t want Eric and Amelia to ever _not_ be a part of his life, so he decides it’s worth it when he has to buy new jeans with a little more room in the waist. 

In May he starts counting the days and hours until the end of the school year, because it’s getting harder and harder not to act on the feelings he has for Eric, who is so kind and funny and such a good dad. They're basically dating without the touching, and it's killing him that they can’t officially be anything more than friends as long as Amelia is his student. He’s pretty sure Eric feels the same way, because sometimes he uses “we” to talk about things he wants to do in the future. (“I can take a few days off for Amelia’s tournament in July; maybe we can go up a day early to go to that museum you were telling me about” and “Ooh, when your parents are here this summer, we definitely need to take them to that French place with the crème brûlée.”) And then there are the times Jack catches Eric staring at him from across the bakery — he doesn’t look away, just gives him a small, fond smile, when he catches Jack catching him staring.

In June, there’s an all-school dance to celebrate the end of the year. Students who have at least a C-average and no detentions for the semester are able to attend. By now, everyone in the school community has heard about the cute single dad who owns a bakery, and the PTA ropes him into making the cookies and cupcakes for the dance. Jack ropes him into chaperoning.

“Did you ever imagine we’d be here?” Eric asks as they stand on the sidelines and watch the kids. He looks _good_ in dark jeans and a button-down under a dark gray blazer; Jack has caught himself staring too many times to count, which is a problem since he's supposed to be watching the kids.

“Yes. I had to sign up for chaperone duty at the beginning of the year,” Jack says.

“You know what I mean.” Eric hip checks him. “There were so many nights I couldn’t sleep, worried Amelia would get kicked out of school before the end of the year. The fact that she earned the privilege of attending this dance is nothing short of a miracle. Thank you for being so patient with her.”

“It was all Amelia,” Jack says. “She worked hard for all of this.”

“A different type of teacher would have thrown in the towel long ago. Lord, at one point I actually looked up boarding schools. I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t been in our corner.”

Jack laughs at that, because if there’s one thing he’s learned about the Bittles these past few months, it’s that father and daughter absolutely _adore_ each other, even when they’re driving each other crazy. “You wouldn’t have lasted a week without her.” 

“You’re right. I probably would have had to beg the school to give me a job in the kitchen. ”

“Ha ha.”

“She looks like she’s having fun,” Eric says, nodding toward the dance floor.

Amelia, clad in a flared pink dress and matching, sequined Converse high tops, is dancing with a group of theater kids and hockey players right under the disco ball that’s been set up for the dance. When she spins and the light catches the sequins on her shoes and skirt, Amelia Bittle is the brightest thing in the room.

Or, he decides when Eric turns back toward him with that smile that never ceases to make the breath catch in his throat, maybe she’s the _second_ brightest thing in the room. And since Amelia has officially not been his student since three this afternoon, he can finally ask Eric the thing he’s been wanting to ask him for months.

“Are you free tomorrow night?”

“Amelia is going to a pool party and then spending the night with Addison Connor. So yeah, I’m free.”

“For dinner? Just us?”

Eric’s gaze is focused on the kids they’re supposed to be supervising, but they’re standing close enough that their arms are touching, and when Eric sneakily reaches over and slips his hand into Jack’s, he knows it’s a yes.

“I close up at four, but you know that.”

“So if I make a reservation for seven …” Jack made the reservation weeks ago, but Eric doesn’t need to know that.

“We’d have time for a walk before dinner. You can come back to my place afterward and we can watch a movie, if you want.”

Jack is pretty sure that if he sets foot in the Bittle home, he’ll never want to leave, and also that “watch a movie” is a euphemism for “make out on the couch like teenagers,” but there’s time to discuss those things. Right now, Jack very much wants to dance with Eric Bittle before the night is over.

“Can we?” Eric asks as Jack pulls him in toward him.

Jack checks his watch. Things are wrapping up and they’ll be done with their chaperone responsibilities in three minutes. Nobody will notice if they stay here in their corner and dance together for the last half of this John Legend song. He nods a little and when Eric relaxes into him, he can’t quite get over how perfectly they fit together.

“You know,” Eric says as his hands slide a little lower down Jack’s back. “Amelia was right.”

“About?”

“In her rap. I finally watched the whole thing. It’s still up on YouTube. Your _assets_ really are impressive.” Eric smiles a little wickedly and gives Jack’s backside a little squeeze. Jack, embarrassed, buries his face in Eric’s hair.

“What if this was all a ploy to get us together?” Jack asks. 

Eric gasps. “She would _never_.”

“Have you met your daughter? She might.”

“She might,” Eric concedes. “I know my daughter is brilliant, but if this was her plan all along, she’s officially promoted to evil genius status.”

“Evil genius or not, I’m glad this happened,” Jack murmurs into his hair. Eric hums in agreement.

When the song ends and the lights are coming on, Jack and Eric reluctantly part. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he says.

“I need to find my daughter first.”

They scan the dance floor, but no Amelia, so they head outside. Her friends, Juan and Addison, are sitting on a bench. “Are you looking for Amelia?” Addison asks.

“I’m ready to go home,” Eric tells them. “Do you know where she went?”

“She’s climbing the roof with Maggy and JT,” Juan says.

In the future, Jack will probably laugh at the memory of the look of horror that crosses Eric’s face, but right now all he can do is follow him as he sprints off to the other side of the building. “Amelia Bittle!” he calls when he spots her, receiving a boost from JT Smith and Maggy Wong. 

“Hi, Dad! _Jack_.”

“Were you really going to climb the roof?”

“Yes.” 

“Oh my lord. Get in the car, Amelia. Maggy, JT, go find your parents. I cannot believe I have to tell y'all not to climb the roof.” When Eric is upset or excited his Southern accent becomes more pronounced, and Jack finds it incredibly endearing.

“School’s out, Dad! He can’t give me detention if I do it tonight.”

Jack is officially off duty, and Amelia Bittle is no longer his most problematic student, so he feels free to laugh, loud and long. Eric elbows him. “You’re not helping.” Jack snakes an arm around his waist and pulls him in to plant a quick, surreptitious kiss on his neck. “Okay, that’s helping.”

Jack laughs again and keeps his arm around Eric as they follow Amelia, sparkling under the parking lot lights, to Eric’s car. “Come on,” he says, low enough so only Eric can hear. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
